Laments & Observations

I Smell (no) Sex & Candy June 26, 2009

Boy. Don’t ever go all over the internet about what a saintly wonderful man you are married to and how he’s so perfect it’s all you can do to keep from fallin’ on your knees to start blowin’. I should know better than to do something like that – my Spidey senses completely failed me yesterday.

It was true though and I came home from work with my heart full to bursting with love for my man. He was solely responsible for my good spirits, having been completely loving and supportive and saying all the right things outside the doctor’s office to console me after our not-so-happy appointment. Not that he was just “saying the right thing” to make me feel better; Brian doesn’t waste his words on platitudes and bullshit. I know he really meant all of it. So, yeah. Full of love. Whatever.

He arrived home shortly thereafter and only had a few minutes before sadly he had to change out of his landscaping clothes into his tile clothes and drive off to work away the second half of the day. I get it. He’s been working his ass off the past week and he’s exhausted to the point of the absurd. However.

He grabbed a sandwich and sat down so we could catch up for a few minutes with each other and the news. For news junkies like us, this has been a banner week both in our state’s government and the entertainment industy at large. Banner. I’d also started to sit down, when he did something so out of character, it literally stopped me in my tracks.

I’ve been counting calories, see. Like, really counting calories. To the point where if I eat five Now & Later’s and I don’t have my little calorie journal right there, I will save the five Now & Later wrappers so that I remember to log those stupid empty calories into the book. Well. Apparently I should’ve thrown away those wrappers Now rather than Later, because he sort of pissily (new word) pushed them aside and said “Nice. Were you just going to leave those there?”

I may have slightly overreacted a little.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME! OH MY GOD, THIS IS PERFECT. I SO NEEDED YOU TO TURN INTO A DICK TODAY; TODAY OF ALL DAYS! THIS WHOLE HOUSE IS A FILTHY PIECE OF SHIT AND YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT SOME CANDY WRAPPERS??? WHEN’S THE LAST TIME YOU DID ANYTHING AROUND HERE? ALL I DO IS WALK AROUND BEHIND YOUR ASS AND CLEAN UP YOUR SHIT – YOU CAN’T EVEN PUT A DIRTY DISH IN THE DISHWASHER, BUT OH FUCK NO, THAT’S OKAY BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT’LL MAKE IT IN THERE ANYWAY, RIGHT? NO NO, THAT’S OKAY – LEAVE YOUR LAUNDRY RIGHT THERE, I’LL WASH IT FOR YOU AND DRY IT AND PUT IT AWAY, RIGHT? AAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!”

Him: “Don’t bother; I’ll do it myself.”

“OH HELL NO! GOD FORBID I SIT AROUND HERE WITH NOTHING TO DO – THANKS FOR THIS, NOW I WON’T BE BORED TONIGHT! AAAAAGGGHHH!!!”

Yeah, I’m glad I’m so calm and rational.

We yelled back and forth for a few minutes (and by we I mean me since he really never yells), he left and then I called him so we could continue to argue while he drove. Drove to go work a second job after working the first job outside in the stupid heat all day. I know. I’m a delight. Of course, before he returned home (at 11:30, making it a nice quick 17-hour workday for him) we’d already talked a few more times and things were all better. In fact, he used the breaking news about Michael Jackson as an excuse for him to call and apologize for hurting my feelings.It usually isn’t too long before we’re friends again.

I was talking to a friend later and she so correctly summed it up: we’re both emotionally, mentally and physically drained, the steam’s been building and it had to blow sometime. He probably wasn’t really that upset about candy wrappers and I might have taken the criticism a tad too personally. A-yup.

But I need to say something here, just between you and me. I resent the fact that our society dictates that when a house is messy, the woman is the only one the criticism gets directed toward. Friends or family come over – they’re not going to look around and think, “Hmm, Brian could sure do some cleaning around here!” No. Brian isn’t even going to register on that radar. And no matter how much help he gives or doesn’t give me, it’s always going to reflect on me. It doesn’t matter that I work fulltime too. Or that a lot of my free time is spent helping him do extra work. If we’re both sitting on our asses long enough for things to fall into disarray, my ass is the only one getting called a shitty housekeeper.

Sadly I know this is never going to change. Whaddaya gonna do, right? He told me as soon as this ridiculous schedule is over with sometime next week, he will help me really clean the place up. But as evil as I can sometimes be, I can also be nice. I’ve already gotten a good start and by the end of this weekend, we’re going to be living in a whole new house. I know both of us are happier that way and really, isn’t that the ultimate goal?

So it’s good he got pissed about the candy wrappers. But I can’t help but wonder if he’d still have said anything if he knew I was planning a blow job for him last night. My guess is no.

I know I’ve heard my MIL say the same thing. I feel like saying “Remember when Brian was little and on Saturday mornings you gave him a list of chores to do and they didn’t get done until the last possible moment before it was time for him to go outside and play? Yeah, not much has changed.”

Oh yup, I hear ya. I get it completely but I don’t work full-time, but ‘only’ homeschool, so it’s a battle for me in that regards. I don’t need a full-grown child to clean up after.

I actually stopped cleaning up his shit after a while and put it in a pile in the corner, a pile which is still there to this day. I just stopped, I couldn’t handle not only the shit left around, but the fact that because I ‘only’ homeschool it’s expected of me to clean it up.

I’ve done the piling of his stuff a lot too, but unfortunately now there are several of those piles threatening to take over the house! But considering these are unusual circumstances, I don’t really mind getting things back in order by myself this time. Whenever things start off being nice and neat it’s easier to keep up with it, but I’d really love if this time we can actually maintain the tidyness for a little while and not go right back to pig sty status.